Italian Food Lovers

After proposing a couple of Italian cookbooks at the beginning of this week we browsed through Academia Barilla’s Gastronomic Library in Parma, in search of the perfect recipe for your Valentine’s Day dinner.

Impossible task, there are too many choices… we’ve found hundreds in our 7,000+ cookbook collection! But with the help of the Gastronomic Library team we managed to find a very good one.

Last year’s Valentine’s Day we delighted your senses and imagination with a series of aphrodisiac recipes, while this year we decided to focus on finding a recipe that is easy and fast to prepare, that is beautiful in presentation and that can be served as a finger food to begin the night well, and so you can avoid engaging with complicated table settings that might get in the way of setting up a romantic atmosphere.

This year our Valentine’s Day recipe is Cartoccio of Eggplant, with Cow’s milk Cheese, Thyme and Olives - a yummy and sensual dish we found in “La Cucina degli Innamorati” (Lovers’ Cuisine), by French cookbook writer Marianne Paquin.

Ready? Let’s go to the kitchen, this won’t take long to prepare!

CARTOCCIO OF EGGPLANT WITH COW’S MILK CHEESE, THYME AND OLIVES
(A recipe by Chef and cookbook writer Marianne Paquin)

INGREDIENTS
(serves 2)

- 2 tomini (soft cow’s milk cheese)
- 1 eggplant
- 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
- 2 stalks thyme
- 8 black olives
- salt and pepper to taste

PREPARATION

Preheat the oven grill. Cut the eggplant in thin slices, brush the slices of egg-plant with oil and place them on the grill rack with baking paper to be grilled.

Turn the slices as they start to get brown, and then take them out of the oven and let them cool. In the meantime, pre-heat the oven at 350 F.

Wrap the soft tomino with two slices of eggplant. Sprinkle it with thyme, salt and pepper. Tie the slices with a kitchen string.

Put the filled eggplant in a baking dish, add the olives, drizzle with the extra virgin olive oil and place into the oven for 10 minutes. The dish is now ready to be served!

Thank you to the Academia Barilla Gastronomic Library team for finding this recipe, and Happy Gourmet Valentine’s Day to all Italian Food Lovers - keep up with your love for Italian food as we do!

Academia Barilla has a very cool newsletter, that we invite you to check out the latest issue and, of course, to subscribe to it. Beside of articles of special interest for all Italian food lovers, there is a regular column for the recipe of the month. We thought it would be a good idea to share it also with you Italian foodies.

Academia Barilla Nesletter’s recipe of the month for the month of October was a traditional Italian appetizer from the Lazio region (the region whose capital town is Rome), a perfect starter for any fish or seafood meal: Marinated anchovies with wild fennel and aromatic herbs.

This cold appetizer based on anchovies is a typical dish of the Mediterranean cuisine, well-known since ancient times in the Mediterranean region, and it is believed to be also an aphrodisiac dish. The marinated sauce made with aromatic herbs is the peculiarity of this recipe.

MARINATED ANCHOVIES WITH WILD FENNEL AND AROMATIC HERBS
An appetizer from Academia Barilla’s Newsletter

Cooking time: 15 minutes
Preparation time: 40 minutes
Marinating time: 24 hours
Difficulty: Low
Serve cold

INGREDIENTS
(serves 4)

- fresh anchovies, 14 ounces
- onions, 2 ounces
- garlic, 1 clove
- lemon juice, 18 fl. ounces
- extra virgin olive oil, 1/2 cup
- dry white wine, 1/2 cup
- wild fennel, to taste
- thyme, to taste
- laurel, to taste
- parsley, to taste
- coriander, to taste
- salt and pepper, to taste

PREPARATION

Carefully clean the anchovies, gut them and discard of head and bones. Place on a slightly greased baking tray with oil and season the fillets with salt and pepper. Put in the oven at 200° for about 5 minutes.

When cooked, remove anchovies from oven.

In a saucepan with oil, brown the finely sliced onion, then sprinkle with some white wine and lemon juice.

Add garlic, wild fennel, thyme, a little coriander and a laurel leaf. Cook at low heat mixing from time to time.

Sprinkle with some minced parsley, orange and lemon zest. Finish cooking for 5 more minutes.

Place the anchovies on a plate, pour the sauce overtop and keep in the fridge for at least 24 hours. This is the required time for an exceptional tasty dish.

CHEF TIPS FROM ACADEMIA BARILLA

If anchovies are marinated raw, the marinating time will be longer.As a typical product of the Mediterranean diet, before serving it is better to leave at room temperature for about 15 minutes.

Well, not so new, after all, since this is the title of another book that I picked up from the Gastronomic Library at the Academia Barilla Culinary Center, and the book is dated back to 1932!

333 New Ways to a Man’s Heart is a classic American cookbook from famous American food writer Phoebe Dane, and it perfectly fits our Valentine’s week series of aphrodisiac gourmet recipes.

Due the time of publishing, of course you will find that Phoebe Dane’s advice is far from what you can find today in magazines like Cosmopolitan, and closer to a vintage Reader’s Digest style - but it is good for our needs as all 333 ways are culinary ways!!!

Here is a picture of the book cover, by the way, with a selection of the other books I picked up for this Italian Food Lovers’ Valentine’s Week from our Gastronomic Library.

I selected 7 easy-to-prepare recipes from Phoebe Dane’s cookbook to make delicious fruit preserves, so you can feed your gourmet lover one a day for a week! About the other 226 ways to reach an heart? That’s up to your personal loving style…

Put your chef apron on, time to move into the kitchen.

GOURMET PRESERVES TO WIN HIS/HER HEART
Recipes by Phoebe Dane

APPLE BUTTER
Wash the apples, and cut in eights. Cook in a small amount of water until tender, then put through a sieve. To each cup of pulp, add 1/2 cup sugar, a small amount of lemon juice, grated rind and spices. Cook until thick and clear.

CANDIED ORANGE PEEL
Put peel from 8 oranges in cold water. bring to boiling point and cook slowly until very tender. Drain and cool in cold water. remove membrane and soft portion. Put the peel in a syrup made from 1 cup sugar and 1/2 cup water, and cook gently until syrup evaporates and peel looks clear. Drain.

CHOCOLATE CANDIED ORANGE PEEL
Melt confectioner’s dripping chocolate in saucepan over hot water. Let water come to boiling point and remove from fire. Beat until cool, then dip pieces of candied orange peel separately in the chocolate.

CRANBERRY JELLY

Put berries on to boil with just enough water to cover. When berries are soft, mash through a sieve and for each cup of juice, which will be very thick, allow 1 cup granulated sugar. Place mixture on stove, and let boil 5 minutes, not a second longer. Then pour into molds.

GRAPE JELLY

Pick grapes from stems, wash, crush, and boil 20 minutes. Put in a jelly bag to drop overnight, but do not squeeze. Measure juice, boil 10 minutes, add an equal amount of sugar that has been warming in the oven, and boil 3 minutes more.

MINT JELLY

Soak 2 tablespoon gelatin in 1/4 cup cold water for a few minutes. Add 1 cup sugar and 2 cups boiling water and stir until gelatin is dissolved. Add 2 cups orange juice, 1/4 cup of lemon juice and coloring. then add 1 cup minced mint leaves.

ORANGE MARMALADE

Put through food chopper or slice very thinly 12 oranges, 1 grapefruit and 4 lemons, including rind. Put into 4 quarts water and let stand in open for 36 hours. Boil until tender, add 8 pounds cane sugar, and cook until it jellies.

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Good job, Phoebe, you sure know how to get to every food lover’s heart! (you should also see all the other recipes on Phoebe’s book, all very classic and old-school, what I call vintage gourmet) Thank you very much Phoebe Dane!

Don’t have time to go through the entire preserve-making process? Try Academia Barilla’s artisan gourmet jellies and compotes. At the Academia Barilla online store we always have a number of delicious treats, such as Gourmet Chianti Wine Jelly, Spicy Fig Compote, and Hand-cut Fresh Pears with Balsamic Vinegar - try them all today!

Valentine’s Day is here!

And, yes, while we here at Italian Food Lovers might not be completely swept off our feet by what has become a somewhat over-hyped holiday, we can’t help but think of the great excuses that we have for yet another great gourmet meal to celebrate.

So, while you’re wining and dining romantically tonight, we thought we’d put together a few gourmet food facts that you can pull out to impress your special someone.

Note: these gourmet food facts should be used tactfully and sparingly, so as to not seem contrived. For instance, when offering your loved one some of Massimo’s excellent ceviche, you can casually drop the “Honey, did you know that it is considered a faux pas in Italy to grate Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese over seafood dishes, like ceviche or even Linguine with Mussels?” line — that’ll be sure to impress and show that you really know your stuff.

So, without further ado, here come some great Valentine’s food fact morsels for you, dear Italian Food Lover. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Gourmet (and Romantic!) Food Facts ala Italian Food Lovers

>> High quality Extra-Virgin Olive Oil comes in dark bottles so as to not allow much light to pass through the bottle and potentially oxidize the fragile olive oil inside. The color of the oil inside the bottle doesn’t necessarily denote quality (Extra-Virgin oils can be a range of colors), but the outside bottle must be dark so as to protect the delicacy of the oil.

Here at Academia Barilla we even completely protect the oil from sunlight by wrapping our top gourmet olive oil bottles in golden paper, which completely protects the bottle and its precious content from all external lights (all other Academia Barilla olive oil bottles of course come with a very dark glass, that filters out most of the external light).

>> Everyone talks about the romance of Tuscany, and here are some food products that conjure up romantic and tasty notions: Tuscany’s famous wine, Chianti (which, like most Tuscan wines, is made with Sangiovese grapes) and Tuscany’s most famous sheep’s milk cheese, Pecorino Toscano, are an excellent combination as a appetizer or as a cheese course. They also make for a great start to a picnic basket!

>> Farinata is a famous Ligurian flatbread that is made using chickpea flour. It is commonly seen in the beautiful and very romantic towns of the Cinque Terre on the Ligurian coast, same area where Academia Barilla produces its refinate Riviera Ligure extra-virgin olive oil, the one we wrap for max protection.

Completely unrelated to this delicacy is a historical figure named Farinata degli Uberti - he was a Tuscan military leader who Dante, famous poet of the Divina Commedia, had placed in Inferno. Perhaps there is a connection after all — maybe Tuscan Farinata degli Uberti made the Ligurian Farinata flatbread in his flaming tomb in the sixth circle of Hell? Only Dante knows the answer to that one….

>> Italians are known to fare la scarpetta at the end of the pasta course of a meal. This sweet little phrase, which literally translates to “do the little shoe,” signifies the ritual usage of bread to soak up any remaining sauce after having consumed the pasta. Make sure you drop this line to your Valentine when you’re about to finish your plate — and possibly their plate as well! after all, if you do it with style, it can also be a very sensual geste during a romantic Valentine’s dinner…

>> And, lastly, it is indeed considered a bit strange to mix cheese with seafood, though after years of seeing tourists request Parmigiano with their Spaghetti alle Vongole (Spaghetti with Clams), more and more Italian nouveau cuisine dishes are creatively mixing the milk with the fruits of the sea.

We’ll have to dig up one of those contemporary recipes in the near future, but, in the meantime, we recommend you save your DOP Pecorino Toscano for dishes that don’t involve fish, shellfish or other water-borne goodies.

Have a wonderful, tasty, gourmet and very romantic Valentine’s Day!

Today is the V-Day, so, happy Valentine’s Day from Italian Food Lovers and Academia Barilla!

Today’s aphrodisiac recipe from Academia Barilla’s Gastronomic Library is again one that got my attention from the Isabel Allende’s Aphrodite novel/cookbook: the classic Italian recipe for Zabaglione cream.

Allende lists the delicious zabaglione cream as one of Aphrodite’s top aphrodisiac desserts, and reports in her book the classic traditional recipe, so she truly deserves an honorable mention by Italian Food Lovers.

Since we are on Valentine’s Day, I thought you might want to enjoy a more indulgent version of this traditional Italian dessert cream, so I opted for a rich zabaglione cream with ground amaretti (almond) cookies and whipped cream…. hmmm, yummy!!! And very sensual to the palate, too, the perfect Valentine’s Day dessert!

I picked up the recipe from top Italian Chef Giuliano Bugialli’s “Parma” cookbook, with the best and more intriguing traditional recipes from the Parma region, heart of the italian Food Valley and home to Academia Barilla.

Ready to be messy in the kitchen? Here we go!

ZABAGLIONE CREAM WITH GROUND AMARETTI (ALMOND) COOKIES AND WHIPPED CREAM
A recipe by Giuliano Bugialli

INGREDIENTS

- 3 amaretti (traditional Italian almond cookies)
- 3/4 cup dry Marsala wine
- 8 extra-large egg yolks
- 10 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup light rum

Plus

- 1 and an 1/2 cups heavy cream
- 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon confectioners’ sugar

For serving

- 8 amaretti (traditional Italian almond cookies)

PREPARATION - 1

Soak the amaretti in the Marsala wine for five minutes. Then prepare the zabaione with the 8 egg yolks, 10 tablespoons of granulated sugar and ½ cup light rum; also add the Marsala with the dissolved amaretti (see below for Chef’s notes). Transfer the cooked zabaione to a crockery or glass bowl and let rest, covered, in the refrigerator until cool, about one hour.

PREPARATION - 2

Chill a metal bowl and wire whisk for the cream. Pour 1 and 1/2 cups heavy cream into the chilled bowl and whip until the cream is quite firm, adding 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar and 1 tablespoon of confectioners’ sugar when the cream has thickened. Remove the zabaglione from the refrigerator, and gently fold it into the whipped cream. Serve in individual glass bowls with an amaretto cookie on the top of each one.

Serve immediately and enjoy!

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Thank you Giuliano Bugialli! By the way, the famous Italian Top Chef gives more detailed tips on how to prepare the zabaglione cream at the Academia Barilla online store, where his rich zabaglione recipe has been crowned recipe of the month for the month of February! So don’t forget to get Giuliano Bugialli’s chef tips on the preparation of this delicious dessert by visiting our online store.

Happy Gourmet Valentine’s!